"I will not ask again. What happened here?!"
The vehicons shook in fear of the commander and his trine, "Uh...t-the autobots attacked, and s-stole the energon supplies of the lower level. Uh, sir!" shouted one of the drones, fearing for his short life.
"Did any of you see it happen, or even try to fight back!", the drones flinched at the commander's tone.
"No, sir, we did not see what happened, we only just arrived after they got away. We came to look for survivors, only to find just this one here-" said the other drone before the first one elbowed him.
"A survivor?" questioned Starscream, walking around the two drones to see the barely online drone, "And did you not think to try to keep him online, he could have valuable information!"
"But…" the first drone hesitated, weighing his options, "He is online, just in stasis."
"Then what are you waiting for, get this drone to the Nemesis for immediate repairs, they just need to stay online long enough to get the information out of its processor." Starscream watched as the drones did nothing, "That is an order!" The two drones rushed to pick up D-8311 and darted to the upper level as Thundercracker called for an upper level ground bridge and update Soundwave on the situation.
The three seekers stood in silence after the drones departed, all three frowning, thinking. Then the youngest, unable to take the silence any longer, spoke up, "I know you felt it, we all felt it."
The biggest member sighed, "It's faint, very faint, near unnoticeable." Thundercracker looks at his trine mates, "It's far, it feels as if they're galaxies away, but we didn't feel it until we came to this planet, in this specific mine."
Starscream, who has been silent throughout the conversation, starts to growl, surprising the other two, "The feeling is gone! They were right there and now they're gone!" he now begins to outright yell in rage. "Our sparkling is here and I never noticed! How could we have never noticed this before?! How could they just disappear like that?! Why is their spark signature very faint?!"
"Our bond." whispers Skywarp, barely catching the attention of his trine mates, "When we are together our bond becomes stronger, and so does the bond between our sparkling. This means we can find them, they are on this planet!" he beams with joy at the thought of finding their lost sparkling.
"We can't." Thundercracker says mournfully, destroying the youngest's joy, "Megatron has forbidden us from searching for our sparkling."
The area goes into a somber silence, "Then we don't tell," Two helms look up at their leader, "We search, but we have to be discrete, we fly together on patrols and report anything we feel in our spark and remember where you felt it." Starscream smiles confidently and looks at them, "We will find our sparkling."
Later on the Nemesis…
The two drones carried D-8311 to the med bay, both grumbling on the way, "You should have just said he was offline, then we would be saved the trouble of actually saving him."
The other one laughed, "He won't be online for much longer. You heard the commander, they're just keeping him online long enough to extract the information out of his processor. Anyway, let's just drop him off and get out of here, you know vehicons are no longer allowed on the ship." Both of the drones stop in front of the med bay before hesitantly walking in.
They quickly pause at the sight of the medic sitting on the lap of his assistant gently stroking his chin. The doctor and his assistant froze at the sight of the two drones walking in and are about to shout at them to leave before they noticed the injured drone they brought along. Knockout quickly goes into medic mode as he gets off Breakdowns lap to set up the medical berth, "What are you waiting for, put him on the berth, I need to know his barcode, what happened, and what are the orders." commanded the doctor as Breakdown gathered the necessary tools for basic repairs.
One of the drones sets D-8311 on the berth and Breakdown starts plugging him into the support machines while the other drone explains the situation, "We were attacked in the mines by the autobots and this one got shot in the chassis, but he is the only one to survive the attack. So Starscream has given the order to stabilize him and to extract his information about the attack."
"Yes, yes." Knockout said dismissively typing into a datapad, "And his barcode designation?"
"D-8311"
This answer caused both medics to freeze and Knockout almost dropped the datapad he was working on. "Get out." stated Knockout. When he noticed the drones not moving he said it again, this time in a form of a command, "I order you to get out!", now with their command protocols activated, they quickly left the room, unable to disobey the order.
"Knockout," started Breakdown, sighing before dropping the news of the patient's condition, "the damage is very severe. The outer casing of the spark chamber is broken and energon is leaving faster than we can put in." Breakdown handed the doctor the datapad with the basic scan of the drone.
Knockout looked over the information quickly before his optics widened and he looked from D-8311 to his assistant, "He should be offline by now, it's impossible for an artificial spark to last this long with this kind of damage." he paused to look over the damage, "Breakdown, you work on doing the basic repairs and start the processor download, then send the download to Soundwave. I refuse to just download and let offline like that," Breakdown nodded slowly.
"We are disobeying an order by saving him you know", he sighed looking to Knockout to ensure that this is what he wanted to do.
Knockout began collecting the needed materials to fix the drone's spark chamber, "I know, but we both know that there is something special about , and the point he is still alive proves that." Breakdown plugged in his processor for download, "With the extensive damage, there is a possibility for him to lose his memory from the download, after all, drones don't have processor backup software."
Knockout moves to work on his spark chamber while breakdown begins on the legs. For awhile they worked in silence before the doctor gasps, "What is it?" asked his assistant.
Knockout lifts something out of the drones chassis, a boxlike object with a wire connected to the spark chamber, "Why does a drone need a spark inhibitor?", he starts to inspect the inhibitor before his optics go wide, "This is Shockwaves work, that I know for sure, but….why does a drone...need it?" Knockout moves quickly to the spark chamber, checking his patch work, ensuring that it is stable enough for further spark inspection. He then moves to the middle seam of the chamber and goes to open it with breakdown watching intently on the side.
The doctor opens the spark chamber wide to allow visage of the artificial spark, only for both the medic and his assistant to freeze. For what seemed like hours, they stood there staring at the chamber, then Breakdown finally broke the silence, "Maybe that's why…"
Inside the chamber where an artificial spark was suppose to be was a large, bright, real spark. Both medical officers were stunned, unsure of how to proceed with this, and only one thing was said by the doctor, "It's a femme?!"
Meanwhile…
Soundwave had access to all the cameras through his visor to watch for any sign of autobots, unwanted guest, rouge decepticons, Starscream, etc. But at the moment he was focused on one specific camera. The med bay.
He watched the entire scene play out. From the drones arriving, to the doctors starting repair and download, to the discovery of the drone un-artificial spark.
This discovery led to many questions. How did this happen? Was it on purpose? Does the drone know? Who does know? And, how many drones have real sparks?
He knows for a fact that there cannot be many drones with real sparks, he has seen many drones artificial sparks before, and it's a possibility for this to be the only one.
Soundwave stood there trying to figure out this new discovery, completely ignoring the information download sent from the medics. He ran every possibility through his processor, running constant simulations through his head. He wanted to know more about this mech….femme, but he knew Megatron's new order for all vehicons. Perhaps he can use his rank and loyalty to ask for this drone specifically as a personal drone. No, he'll want to know why, and Soundwave doesn't feel like sharing this information, or his drone. Yes, his drone.
He ran another scan, this time over the spark signature, trying to identify the spark. He found nothing in the primary database, so he began to run it with all other collected databases, old, new, stolen, recovered, he went through each one before stopping at one database. The late doctor, Hook's database. He found a match with a very vague file, his last entered, and uncompleted file. Starfall. The sparkling to none other than the command trine itself.
This was an issue. Seekers are very, very, protective of sparklings, whether they're their own or not, and with all the seekers now on board, his plans will be much harder to complete. They will try to take away his drone. He won't let some weak seekers with caregiver programming take away what belongs to him. They can't take them away, if they don't know about them, or can tell which one is which….
He looked back at the med bay camera and watched them repair the drone. What was it that they said, memory loss. That means the drone will be set back to basic drone programming, and will be needed to given core settings. That is when he will enter. Drones physically cannot deny orders from higher ups set during core settings, but if only one mech was entered during that phase. They will only listen to him and only him.
Soundwave began to move, and plan. The moment the medics leave, that will be his chance. A simple reprogramming and processor hacking will ensure this drone will belong to him.
He has been sure about many things, but he has never been more sure about anything before.
Drone D-8311, , Starfall, belongs to Soundwave.